Say 7 With Glade 
As I sit down to write this annual message to our 
friends and customers, there flashes on the inward eye 
recollections of the thousands of surprises and thrills 
with which the glad field greeted us in the course of a 
long, long summer, of the sixty or more fascinating 
arrangements which Carl Starker, with the aid of his 
charming wife, made up for us during their all-too- 
brief visit to Minnesota, of the many pleasant encoun- 
ters with fellow glad-lovers which we enjoyed upon 
their visits to our field or at shows. Certainly the long 
hours of hard work in the nursery business offer many 
compensations, not the least of them being the oppor- 
tunity to meet and make friends with some of the 
nicest people in the world. 
In this regard I am reminded of Emerson’s poem on 
FRIENDSHIP. Incidentally—to digress momentarily— 
Emerson’s most famous poem has to do with a flower, 
the Rhodora, a modest cousin of the azalea native in 
New England. In it occur the famous lines: 
“Rhodora, if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then beauty is its own excuse for being.” 
—Jines which have become a part of every flower- 
lover’s philosophy. Equally fine, but somehow much 
less well-known, is Emerson’s poem on FRIENDSHIP, 
which I can’t forbear quoting because of its beauty and 
pertinence: 
“A ruddy drop of manly blood 
The surging sea outweighs. 
The world, uncertain, comes and goes; 
The lover, rooted, stays. 
I fancied he was fled, 
But after many a year 
Glowed unexhausted kindliness 
Like daily sunrise there. 
My careful heart was free again: 
Oh, friend, my bosom said, 
Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
Through thee the rose is red. 
All things through thee take nobler form 
And look beyond the earth; 
The mill-round of our fate 
Appears a sunpath in thy worth. 
Me, too, thy nobleness has taught 
To master my despair; 
The fountains of my hidden life 
Are, through thy friendship, fair.” 
In these beautiful lines, Emerson has touched on 
one of life’s basic truths, that to have zest and signifi- 
cance, life must be viewed through the heart. 
To fall in love with some aspect of God’s creation, 
such as flowers, invests them with a charm otherwise 
unrealized. This is the state of affairs prosaically 
known as “having a hobby.” So much of one’s own 
happiness, and so much of the opportunity to create 
happiness for others, depends on having worthwhile 
hobbies. Thus it becomes important to choose one’s 
hobbies wisely and not to limit one’s self to one. Nat- 
urally, flowers seem to me to constitute the ideal sub- 
jects for hobbies and while I do not want to put one 
flower ahead of another, I do think that every flower 
lover ought to grow some glads. Never was nature 
in a more generous mood than when she created the 
gladiolus. How easily—if one has but a small glad 
garden on even a single row of glads in one’s vegetable 
garden—how easily one can cut whole armsful of 
glorious color—especially those ravishing pinks which 
are nearly everyone’s favorite—to bring into the house 
for home decoration or to give to appreciative neigh- 
bors. There’s no nicer way to “say it with flowers”— 
‘ 
no more colorful, more generous way—than to “say 
it with glads.” 
Glads are not just a business with Noweta Gardens 
nor a means of earning a livelihood. They’re primarily 
a hobby. That is why we take so much pleasure in 
bringing to you our unusual catalog and try to do all 
we can to make glads as a hobby as pleasurable as 
possible for our customers. 
I hate to drop down to mundane things, but we do 
have to face them, don’t we? Hobbies can be expen- 
sive, but in this regard I am happy to say that of all 
the hobbies I know, glad-growing seems to be the most 
self-financing. Every year customers write in to tell 
us how many glads they have sold as cut-flowers— 
$200 from a city lot, etc. Often stay-at-homes earn 
substantial sums in this fashion. It’s better than tak- 
ing subscriptions to magazines because your customers 
come to you instead of your having to go to them. 
The high-point of our 1953 summer, as I look back on 
it now, was our seedling meeting at our local Congre- 
gational Church on August 2. In addition to the 
seedlings themselves, several hundred in number, Carl 
Starker, who had just arrived on July 30, had made up, 
in a little over a day’s time, 38 perfectly charming 
arrangements, which, with the seedlings, completely 
filled the basement of the church. In the afternoon, 
Mr. Starker gave one of his inimitable lectures and 
demonstrations of the art of flower arrangement, dur- 
ing which he made up seven additional intriguing com- 
positions. About 250 glad fans from nearby states and 
local flower lovers filled the auditorium of the church 
where the “text” was the somewhat unusual one of 
the beauties of God’s creation. 
A week after the seedling meeting we attended the 
Central International Glad Show at Chicago, where 21 
of our seedlings won awards. We also had a com- 
mercial display, including some striking vases and bas- 
kets made up for us by our good friends, Don Hender- 
son of Lubbock, Texas, and Adele Cahlander of Min- 
neapolis, Minnesota. 
Incidentally, the Central International Glad Show 
next year will be at Rochester, Minnesota, in the air- 
cooled Mayo Auditorium. Rochester is only 20 miles 
west of St. Charles, and, if all goes well, we hope to 
have a nice display there. Carl Starker has agreed to 
be on hand to make up a few dozen of his incompara- 
ble arrangements. You're invited! By all means try 
to come, and bring your friends. 
After two years of solid color in our catalog, we are 
re-introducing a few halftones. This comes as a result 
of Mr. Starker’s insistence on their merit, and we do 
have to admit that form as a whole and in its details 
shows more sharply in black and white than in color. 
Our 1953 Honor Roll is as follows: Harrisburger, 
Francesca, Statuette, Sierra Snow, Prospector, Edge- 
wood, Stormy Weather, and Rosita. These are the 
newer sorts (my own excluded) which were outstand- 
ing last summer and have never previously appeared 
on our honor roll. 
Elsewhere in this catalog is an announcement of the 
newly-established All-America Gladiolus Selections 
system. We have great expectations that the AAGS 
will accomplish wonders in improving and popularizing 
the gladiolus. 
In conclusion, I want to thank you again for your 
many fine letters. It’s great to belong to the fraternity 
of glad-lovers! I hope you will all have a wonderful 
year with your hobby in 1954. 
CULT Gee 
